


What The Fates Allow

by mammothluv



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28099800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mammothluv/pseuds/mammothluv
Summary: Jamie and Dani in the years after Bly.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	What The Fates Allow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lookatallthemoresigive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatallthemoresigive/gifts).



> Written for lookatallthemoresigive for Yuletide 2020. I hope you enjoy your fic. I loved writing it!

Dani tells her they have to be standing at midnight. Some superstition her mom taught her that if you aren’t standing at the strike of the new year you’ll be six feet under by the next. 

Jamie hears just a tinge of anxiety in Dani’s voice as Dani tells her about it. Jamie’s not the superstitious sort but, when it comes to Dani, she won’t leave things to chance. It’s their first New Year’s together and, as much as she tells Dani they’ll take it day by day, Jamie wants more years. She sets her drink down and reaches out a hand to pull Dani up.

“Then I suppose you’d better dance with me. We don’t want to tempt fate.” 

Dani smiles widely and lets Jamie pull her close. She wraps her arms around Jamie’s waist and they dance to the sound of the cheering on the TV, hold onto each other tightly as the crowd counts down the last seconds of the year. 

When the crowd on TV shouts “Happy New Year!” Dani kisses Jamie with an enthusiasm that prompts Jamie to ask, “Okay, but now we can go to bed, yeah?” 

“Definitely,” Dani replies. 

*** 

Jamie bites her lip as she watches Dani. Dani is oblivious for the moment and Jamie takes the opportunity to admire the way her hair falls over her eyes when she’s intently focused on something. 

“What, am I doing it wrong?” Dani asks, looking down at the flowers she’s arranging and then back up at Jamie. 

Jamie just shakes her head slowly and flicks out her tongue to wet her lips, eyes never leaving Dani’s. Dani takes a deep breath. 

“The store is still open,” Dani says. 

“You’re the one having filthy thoughts, Poppins.” 

“You started them,” Dani protests. 

Jamie’s already walking to the door, turning the lock, and putting the “back soon” sign up. Jamie wonders if Dani will ever make her stop feeling this dizzy thrilling kind of wanting. She hopes not. 

She takes Dani’s hand and pulls her into the back room, pushes her against the desk until Dani is sitting on it and Jamie is standing in the space between her thighs which she feels clenching in anticipation. 

Jamie leans in to kiss her, at the last minute moving to kiss her cheek and then whispering in her ear, “Naughty girl, you’re on the clock, what is the boss going to think?”

Dani responds with a moan as Jamie slowly unbuttons Dani’s pants. Dani scoots forward, clenches her legs around Jamie in an effort to pull her closer. Jamie lets out a deep laugh as she trails her fingers down, almost where Dani wants them but not quite. 

***

She wakes to Dani’s restless movements and then a whimper as Dani’s head lifts from her pillow. Dani looks around frantically only pausing when her eyes land on Jamie. 

Jamie reaches out a hand and Dani scoots backward, that faraway look in her eyes that scares Jamie more than she’d like to admit. 

“I just need a minute,” Dani says.

“I’ll make tea,” Jamie replies. 

In the kitchen, she takes deep breaths as she puts the kettle on and pulls Dani’s favorite chamomile from the cabinet. The ritual of making tea helps slow her racing heart. 

Five minutes later she’s back in the bedroom handing Dani a warm mug. When crawls back into bed, Dani scoots closer so they’re shoulder to shoulder, backs resting against the headboard. 

“You want to talk about it?” Jamie asks.

“It was the dream where it doesn’t work. Where she just keeps going, taking Flora with her underwater and I can’t stop it. I can’t do anything.” Dani’s breath comes in short gasps.

Jamie puts an arm around her shoulder and Dani nestles into her shoulder.  
“It’s okay. You’re here. Flora is safe. It didn’t happen that way. You’re okay, you’re okay,” Jamie repeats until she feels Dani relaxing into her. 

“Thanks,” Dani says, straightening up enough to take a sip of the tea. 

“Not letting you make the tea is just self-preservation at this point.” 

Dani lets out a laugh. “I meant for being patient with me.” 

“You’ve been through a lot, Dani. I’d say you’re coping remarkably well, all things considered,” Jamie reassures her. 

“Yeah, I guess. I just, you shouldn’t have to put up with this every…” 

“Shut up right now. If you’re about to say some bollocks about living with you is anything but an absolute delight, I don’t want to hear it.” 

“Okay. Geeze!” Dani says, letting out a genuine laugh that makes Jamie’s heart feel a little lighter.

Jamie’s fingers land on Dani’s chin and tilt it so Dani is looking right at her. 

“You’re worth it, Dani. More than,” she says. 

*** 

When Owen comes to town scouting locations for his new restaurant, they meet at a Mediterranean restaurant just a few blocks from their apartment. 

Jamie pulls Dani close to ward off the wind and nerves on the walk there. When they walk in and see Owen seated and waiting, watch his smile grow wide, Jamie realizes the nerves were all for naught. It’s as if no time has passed. Owen greets them both with a warm hug. 

A few minutes into their dinner Owen says, “I’m so glad you could both make it. It would have been a pita to miss this opportunity for a reunion.” He raises a piece of pita bread as he says it then dips it into hummus and drops it into his mouth.

“Oh my god,” Jamie groans. 

“You missed me,” he says. 

Jamie just rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her drink. 

“We really did,” Dani says. 

***

“You’re staring, Poppins,” Jamie says. 

The words seem to break whatever trance Dani has been under. She shakes her head as if clearing a fog. 

“I wasn’t,” Dani protests. “I was just looking… at… you.” 

“For an extended period of time. Intently. Yes, that’s what is often called staring. Now I realize I am a gorgeous woman but I must say it’s a bit unnerving,” Jamie teases. 

“Well, when you put it that way…” 

“Don’t get me wrong, there’s no one in the world I’d rather be creepily stared at by. I was just wondering where your head was.” 

“Oh it’s nothing,” Dani says, making a show of picking up the newspaper on the coffee table and beginning to unfold it. 

“It’s never nothing with you.” 

“You hate when I get mushy.” 

“I do not. I make fun of you sometimes, yes. But that’s different.” 

“I just never thought I’d have this, you know. I just… I was so used to… for a long time I thought… ugh!” Dani throws her hands up in the air and gives Jamie a disgruntled look. “Why’d you have to catch me staring?” 

“Aha! You admit it!” Jamie exclaims. 

Dani signs and slumps against the back of the couch.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I was just teasing.” 

“No, no. I want to. I want you to know. It’s just… really easy to love you, Jamie. Like sometimes I look at you and I’m so happy it’s like I can feel confetti bursting in my heart.” 

“That sounds like a serious condition,” Jamie says, failing to keep a straight face. 

“Shut up!” Dani demands, punching her lightly in the shoulder. “I just never thought I’d have anything like this. And I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Yeah, me too. You big mush,” Jamie says. “Come here.” 

Dani scoots closer on the couch, close enough to kiss which was exactly Jamie’s intention. And Jamie kisses her slow, echoing all the love and gratitude Dani just expressed. 

***

Jamie can’t stop looking at the ring, marveling at the new weight of it on her finger.

“You really like it?” Dani asks. 

“I love it, Poppins,” Jamie says, the old nickname rolling off her tongue with a wave of affection. She thinks about how nervous Dani looked when she gave her the ring and wonders how she got so lucky to have this brave beautiful woman in her life. “I’m never taking it off.” 

“Good,” Dani says, wrapping her arms around Jamie’s waist from behind. “I love you.” 

“I love you right back.” 

“I know,” Dani replies in a singsong voice. “You’re wearing my ring.” 

“Oh my god, you’re such a goof.” 

“But you love me,” Dani shoots back.

“I really, really do,” Jamie confirms, covering Dani’s hands with her own. 

That night, when they go to bed, Dani falls asleep first. And Jamie can’t sleep just looking at her and knowing they chose each other. 

***

When Dani starts seeing the lady from the lake more and more, sometimes she just crawls into bed, trails her fingers down Jamie’s spine. And Jamie knows Dani is asking her to help her forget the fear even if just for a little bit. 

Jamie flips her over, brackets Dani with her knees. Kisses Dani with a promise they both know she can’t keep forever but, God, she’ll try. She concentrates on the steady weight of Dani under her and the way Dani quivers with even the lightest touch. 

She can feel it, the moment Dani melts completely into her and everything else disappears except the soft places where skin meets skin, comfortable and electric all at once.

Later in the silence, Jamie will pull Dani close, put her head against Dani’s chest, and try to memorize the rhythm of her. 

***

After the lake. When there is no more Dani or at least not anywhere Jamie can reach, Jamie goes back to their apartment. Dani’s absence is everywhere. Jamie picks up Dani’s pink cardigan and wraps it around her shoulders, sits down on the couch that should have Dani on the other side. 

She’ll close her eyes and replay the slideshow of their years together. Moments she froze in her mind because she’d known this was coming no matter how much she’d tried to fight it. 

Later she’ll call Owen. One of the few people who will understand what it means to lose someone to Bly. He’ll bring over beers and they’ll sit together silently all night and for several nights after. Until one night Owen says, “Remember the time she almost killed me with the fire poker?” 

And for the first time since the lake, Jamie will laugh. 

***

At Flora’s wedding, she lets herself drift into a daydream for a moment - another world where she and Dani would have danced and Jamie would hide her wince as Dani stepped on her toes for the fourth time. 

Owen interrupts her thoughts, “You look a million miles away,” he says as he pulls up a chair next to her. 

“I suppose I was,” she replies, picking up her glass of champagne and taking a sip. 

Owen slides a plate with a piece of cake on it in her direction and smiles at her like he knows exactly where her mind was. 

“I don’t blame you for being a little emotional. It’s a wedding after all. Look,” he says, “even the cake is in tiers.”

“No mate,” she says with a laugh as she picks up a fork and digs into her cake. “That’s bad even for you.” 

“Tell me what’s on your mind, pal. If you don’t I’ll ask you to dance but that’s my last re-torte.” 

“Anything to put an end to the cake puns,” Jamie replies with a groan. “I’m glad they don’t remember,” she says. “It’s just…”

“All a little bittersweet isn’t it?” Owen says as they both look toward Flora, dancing happily with her new husband. 

Jamie remembers what Flora said last night, “It’s a love story.” Dani will be the story that pops into Flora’s head at odd times. And maybe Flora will feel an affection she can’t quite pinpoint for the young au pair whose story she heard the night before her wedding. Jamie hopes so.

When she gets back to the hotel she looks at the bathtub, the sink, both of them full. She searches for Dani in every ripple, every shadow that passes over the water. 

Dani is never there. 

But, when Jamie closes her eyes at night, she doesn’t always feel the loss. Some nights, she drifts off and see’s Dani’s wide smile, hears her honey tinged laughter. And if she can stay in it long enough, that moment between awake and sleep, Jamie can almost feel the soft warmth of Dani curled around her again. 

Even the shadow of Dani is enough. 

***

The doctor tells Jamie it’s coming soon and Jamie tells no one. She didn’t expect to be but as the days go by and breathing becomes more and more effort, she’s scared. She starts to think death meaning a reunion with Dani was just a romantic notion. Something childish she never let go because she knew she couldn’t live without it. 

Then one night, splashing water on her face before bed, Jamie sees her. There in the sink, rippling with the water, a gentle smile on her face. It’s very much her Dani, though something more too. And in that moment Jamie knows. Tomorrow she’ll make the drive to Bly Manor one last time, take off her shoes, and wade into the water. 

Dani will take her now. 

She’s been waiting.


End file.
